Monday, August 22, 2005

It's 10:12 here, so I should try to get some rest in a minute or two. I just spent the last hour tweaking my presentation a bit. I had dinner with two of the search committee members, so I've already talked about some of the stuff that I'll be covering tomorrow, but that can't be helped. Conversation happens organically, I suppose. The list of things I forgot to pack continues. I had to buy the ethernet cable from the mini-bar for $11.95+tax. Then I realized I didn't pack my deoderant, so I paid $6.50 for a yucky roll-on at the hotel gift shop. If I wasn't due to dinner fifteen minutes after I figured out my mistake, I might have found a pharmacy. Lastly, I did not bring a comb. How dumb am I?

Pretty dumb, judging from my biggest mistake of the day. I had to change planes at DFW, and the second boarding pass had no gate number on it. When we were about to land, the helpful flight attendent reeled off the gates for connecting flights and she gave mine as C16. So, with nearly two hours to spare, I jumped on the SkyLink and went to C16 and read while my ipod charged. You see where this is heading, right? When I realized my flight should have boarded already, I finally looked at the departure board and saw my flight was actually boarding at C32. Me being me, I didn't check anything, so I had a big-ish backpack and a laptop and was wearing high-heeled sandals. Inappropriate footwear is my trademark. With six minutes until my flight was set to leave, I took off my shoes and ran barefoot through the terminal, around past the food vendors and finally got to C32 as they were about to close the door. The gate agent told me to run down the plank to the plane, and I did. At least the plane was only half-full, which I have not experienced since the bottom fell out after 2001.

Blogging has given me a second wind, so I'm off to watch television and eat something outrageously priced from the mini-bar.